Breastfeeding It seems as if there are basic two schools of thought out there regarding the parenting of young children. There is the “follow your baby’s cues, and he/she will let you know what he needs” school, and the “children do best when a structure/schedule is imposed on them” school, with the latter group getting more encouragement from the society at large. Scheduling is generally thought of as sort of virtuous in a strange way. The idea is, if you impose this “discipline” on your child from the first days then he/she will grow up to be a compliant child and a disciplined adult. There is also an idea that children need the same things to happen to them at the same times every day in order to feel they live in a safe and secure world. The whole scheduling idea so permeates the culture that even parents who haven’t thought the whole issue through in these terms, seem to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to hold their babies off from eating. They jiggle and bounce a fussy baby, and insert pacifiers and fingers, trying to hold that baby off the breast as long as possible. Some parents who have thought about the issue and consciously chosen scheduling, even leave baby in the crib to cry alone until the next appointed hour when the clock finally gives the parent permission to go feed that baby. While it may be true that children do require some routine in their lives in order to feel they live in a safe, well ordered world, I think it is a great disservice to make the life of a child so predictable that he knows exactly what to expect most of the time. A child whose life is never surprising grows up to be rigid, inflexible, and vulnerable to change. The day comes when one can no longer control a child's environment: cars break down, divorces occur, neighborhood kids are mean. Life happens. Children raised in environments that are too structured are never allowed to develop the skills to survive change. With regard to feeding schedules, while it might on the surface seem as if scheduled feedings would make a child more disciplined about food, and life in general, the opposite is true. What scheduling actually teaches a child is that he is a helpless pawn in a confusing world. Babies can’t read clocks! They have no idea what “every four hours” means. They have no concept of past or future. They know only that they are crying with hunger now, and no one is taking away the hurt. Children fed on schedules learn that when there is food in front of them, they had better scarf it down and stuff themselves as full as they can because they have absolutely no control over getting more food later if their growing bodies need it. This "see food and scarf it down" mentality carries over into adulthood. We in the United States have the fattest population in the world. We are also among the few countries that have traditionally endorsed scheduled feedings. Is there a connection? Eating problems are not the only health issues scheduling may contribute to. Scheduled babies are far more likely to suffer from failure-to-thrive, a condition in which baby doesn’t gain weight, but just sort of wastes away listlessly until he/she dies or something is done about it. There are babies who die every year in this country as a result of scheduling. The danger is particularly acute for breastfed babies because while the health benefits of breastfeeding are widely documented, what many parents and even doctors don’t know is that breastfed babies must eat more often than traditional scheduling permits. Breast milk is digested much more easily than artificial baby milk, leaving the stomach in half the time. In addition, most mothers must breastfeed often in order to maintain enough of a supply to sustain a growing human being. The more often a mother nurses, the greater her milk supply, and frequency of nursing is more valuable for increasing supply than duration of nursing. It is normal and desirable for new babies to need to eat anywhere from 8-18 times a day, more often in a growth spurt, less often when they are in a resting phase. Every child’s metabolism is unique. The important thing is to listen to the baby and be flexible. If you feed your baby according to cues rather than by the clock, your child will eat when he/she feels hungry and stop when full. Isn’t that a habit most of us wish we had?